Compels me to disturb your season due:

For Lycidas is dead, dead ere his prime,

Young Lycidas! and hath not left his peer.

Who would not sing for Lycidas?

He knew

Himself to sing, and build the lofty

rhyme.

He must not float upon his watery bier Unwept, and welter to the parching wind,

Without the meed of some melodious tear.

Begin then, Sisters of the sacred well,

That from beneath the seat of Jove doth spring,

Begin, and somewhat loudly sweep the string.

Hence with denial vain, and coy excuse;

So may some gentle Muse

With lucky words favor my destined urn,

And as he passes turn,

And bid fair peace be to my sable shroud.

For we were nurst upon the selfsame hill,

Fed the same flock, by fountain, shade, and rill; Together both, ere the high lawns appeared

Under the opening eyelids of the

Now thou art gone, and never must return!

Thee, Shepherd, thee the woods, and desert caves

With wild thyme and the gadding vine o'ergrown,

And all their echoes mourn.

The willows, and the hazel copses green,

Shall now no more be seen, Fanning their joyous leaves to thy soft lays.

As killing as the canker to the rose, Or taint-worm to the weanling herds that graze,

Or frost to flowers, that their gay wardrobe wear,

When first the white-thorn blows; Such, Lycidas, thy loss to shepherd's

ear.

Where were ye, Nymphs, when the remorseless deep Closed o'er the head of your loved Lycidas?

For neither were ye playing on the steep,

Where your old Bards, the famous
Druids, lie,

Nor on the shaggy top of Mona high,
Nor yet where Deva spreads her
wizard stream.
Ay me, I fondly dream!

Had ye been there- for what could that have done?

What could the Muse herself, that Orpheus bore,

The Muse herself, for her inchanting son,

Whom universal nature did lament, When by the rout that made the hideous roar,

His gory visage down the stream was sent,

Down the swift Hebrus to the Lesbian shore?

Alas! what boots it with uncessant care

To tend the homely slighted shepherd's trade,

And strictly meditate the thankless Muse?

Were it not better done as others use,

To sport with Amaryllis in the shade,

Or with the tangles of Neæra's hair? Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise

And slits the thin-spun life. But not the praise,

Phoebus replied, and touched my trembling ears;

Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil,

Nor in the glistering foil

Set off to the world, nor in broad rumor lies;

But lives and spreads aloft by those pure eyes,

And perfect witness of all-judging Jove;

As he pronounces lastly on each deed,

Of so much fame in heaven expect thy meed.

O fountain Arethuse, and thou honored flood,

Smooth-sliding Mincius, crowned with vocal reeds,

That strain I heard was of a higher mood;

But now my oat proceeds,

And listens to the herald of the sea
That came in Neptune's plea;
He asked the waves, and asked the
felon winds,

What hard mishap hath doomed this gentle swain?

And questioned every gust of rugged wings

That blows from off each beaked promontory:

They knew not of his story, And sage Hippotades their answer brings,

That not a blast was from his dungeon strayed;

The air was calm, and on the level brine

Sleek Panopé with all her sisters played.

It was that fatal and perfidious

bark,

Built in the eclipse, and rigged with

Next Camus, reverend sire, went footing slow,

His mantle hairy, and his bonnet sedge,

Inwrought with figures dim, and on the edge

Like to that sanguine flower inscribed with woe.

Ah! Who hath reft (quoth he) my dearest pledge?

Last came, and last did go,
The pilot of the Galilean lake;
Two massy keys he bore of metals
twain,

(The golden opes, the iron shuts amain)

He shook his mitred locks, and stern bespake;

How well could I have spared for thee, young swain,

Enow of such as for their bellies' sake Creep, and intrude, and climb into the fold?

Of other care they little reckoning make,

Than how to scramble at the shearer's feast,

And shove away the worthy bidden guest;

Blind mouths! that scarce themselves know how to hold

A sheep-hook, or have learned aught else the least

That to the faithful herdman's art belongs!

What recks it them? What need they? They are sped; And when they list their lean and flashy songs

Grate on their scrannel pipes of wretched straw,

The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed,

But swoln with wind, and the rank mist they draw,

Rot inwardly, and foul contagion spread;

Besides what the grim wolf with privy paw

Daily devours apace, and nothing said; But that two-handed engine at the door

Stands ready to smite once, and smite no more.

Return, Alpheus, the dread voice is past,

That shrunk thy streams; return, Sicilian Muse,

To strew the laureate hearse where Lycid lies.

For so to interpose a little ease, Let our frail thoughts dally with false surmise.

Ay me! Whilst thee the shores and sounding seas

Wash far away, where'er thy bones are hurled,

Whether beyond the stormy Hebrides,

Where thou perhaps under the whelming tide

Visit'st the bottom of the monstrous world;

Or whether thou, to our moist vows denied,

Sleep'st by the fable of Bellerus old, Where the great vision of the guarded mount

Looks toward Namancos and Bayona's hold;

Look homeward Angel now, and melt with ruth,

And, O ye dolphins, waft the hapless youth.

Weep no more, woful shepherds, weep no more,

For Lycidas your sorrow is not dead, Sunk though he be beneath the watery floor;

So sinks the day-star in the ocean bed,

And yet anon repairs his drooping head,

And tricks his beams, and with newspangled ore

Flames in the forehead of the morning sky.

So Lycidas sunk low, but mounted high,

Through the dear might of Him that walked the waves,

Where other groves, and other streams along,

With nectar pure his oozy locks he laves,

And hears the unexpressive nuptial